Cristiane "Cyborg" Justino captured the Invicta FC featherweight title in a four-round domination over Marloes Coenen last July, and she’s looking to return to the cage in January 2014. The opponent and the weight class are yet to be determined.
"This is the last fight in my contract with Invicta FC, and they asked me if I can fight in January," Justino told MMAFighting.com. "I don’t know who I’m fighting next, but I’m fighting in January.
"They asked me if I would accept a fight at 155 pounds, and I said I would. I just want to fight. At 145 or 155, I’ll fight whoever they give me. But I don’t know if I’ll defend the title in my next fight."
Invicta FC has never done a lightweight bout in their previous six events, and the seventh show, planned for Dec. 7, includes only one featherweight clash -- and again, zero lightweight contests.
Featherweights Julia Budd and Charmaine Tweet are both coming off three stoppage victories, but "Cyborg" believes it’s unlikely that she puts her title on the line against the winner of that bout.
"I don’t think I’ll fight the winner of this bout because they’re fighting in December, so I don’t believe the winner would be ready to fight me in January," she said. "Who knows? It might happen, but I think it’s unlikely."
Justino’s three-fight deal with Invicta FC ends in her next bout, and she’s willing to sign a new deal with the promotion.
"This is the last fight of my contract, but I’m really happy at Invicta FC, and I believe I’ll sign a new deal," she said. "I like them, and there’s simply no other place to go. UFC has women’s division, but they don’t have my weight class. I believe I’ll sign a new deal with Invicta FC after this fight."
Signing a new contract with Invicta FC doesn’t mean "Cyborg" forgot the idea of fighting UFC bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey, though.
"I really wanted to fight Ronda Rousey in a catchweight bout, but UFC doesn’t want to do this fight," she said. "It wouldn’t be interesting to them because I would go there, beat the crap out of her and return to Invicta. It would be bad for the UFC and they know that, and that’s why they don’t want this fight."
Bond v. United States is testing whether Congress can use treaty laws to punish domestic criminal behavior.
Photo by NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images
It’s the Supreme Court case that sounds like a Lifetime movie: When Carol Bond found out that her husband was having an affair with her best friend, Myrlinda Haynes—and that Haynes was pregnant—Bond, a microbiologist who lived in the Philadelphia suburbs, put toxic chemicals on Haynes’ mailbox and her car. She got caught—and was indicted under a federal statute that makes it illegal to use toxic chemicals to harm other people. Congress had passed that statute to implement the U.S. government’s obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention, the same treaty that Syria was recently forced to sign.
Next Tuesday, Bond’s lawyers will try to persuade the Supreme Court that Congress can’t use the chemical weapons treaty as an excuse for punishing run-of-the-mill criminal behavior. This superficially appealing argument is beloved by libertarians, who have dashed to Bond’s aid, but it depends on a bizarre and tendentious reading of the Constitution that honors neither the founders’ intentions nor the practicalities of governance.
The Constitution gives Congress limited (“enumerated”) powers, which are thought mostly to exclude the ordinary stuff of criminal law like the dispute Bond was involved in. Normally, we think that if we need a law that prohibits people from attacking each other with toxic chemicals, the states, not the national government, should pass it.
And it’s true that the law that nailed Bond derives its authority circuitously. Congress enjoys the power under the Constitution’s catchall Necessary and Proper Clause to enact laws that are needed to advance other powers in the Constitution. One of those other powers is the president’s power to enter treaties with the consent of two-thirds of the Senate. Thus, the government argues, the federal law that criminalizes the harmful use of chemical weapons, privately as well as by governments and terrorists, was necessary and proper to implement the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Bond’s argument is that the president and the Senate cannot, by entering a treaty, give Congress a power that it otherwise does not have. Such a reading of the Constitution crowds out the states’ police powers and gives too much sway to Congress.
This case is a strange vehicle for examining this constitutional question. True, the feds took over the case from state authorities, but that was because Constable Dogberry of the local police thought that the toxic chemical Bond smeared on Haynes’ car was cocaine and advised her to get it washed, not because Pennsylvania law allows people to assault each other with toxic chemicals. The federal law enabled the federal government to step in—the U.S. Postal Service did surveillance and caught Bond—and to punish Bond for acts that were illegal under Pennsylvania law as well.
But libertarian critics of national government power, like the Cato Institute, which submitted an amicus brief, worry that if Bond loses this case, the United States could enter a treaty with Suriname or Lesotho to abolish the death penalty or home schooling. Then Congress could pass an implementing statute that shreds state laws on the death penalty and home schooling, which (according to the libertarians) Congress is otherwise not allowed to do.
You might wonder why Suriname or Lesotho, or the United States, would enter such a treaty. And it is most doubtful that they would. Bond v. United States has become an ideological dispute, based, as such disputes so often are, on the merely theoretical possibility that the government will abuse its powers.
Cato’s brief is rooted in a literal-minded reading of the text of the Constitution. The Treaty Clause says that the president has the power to make treaties with the consent of the Senate. The necessary and proper clause says that Congress has the power to pass laws that are necessary and proper to the exercise of other powers in the Constitution. Cato concludes that therefore Congress has the power to pass laws that are necessary and proper to the making of treaties. But it doesn’t have the power to pass laws that are necessary and proper to the implementing of the treaties, because there is no separately enumerated constitutional power for implementing. And so, according to Cato, Congress can pass laws to implement treaties only if it can rely on a source of power rooted elsewhere in the Constitution. It has no such power to criminalize the domestic use of chemicals as weapons.
One can respond to this argument by observing that Congress can rely on its old broadly interpreted friend, the power to regulate interstate commerce. But libertarians object to the broad interpretation of Congress’ powers here as well. And in the Bond case, the government didn’t make this argument in the lower courts. One can also respond by arguing that “make” has a broader meaning than Cato claims, as another amicus brief gamely does.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State John Kerry is hitting the road again, this time on a damage-control mission to the Middle East and Europe where rancor is high over U.S. strategies in Syria, Egypt and Iran as well as American surveillance activities revealed by ex-NSA analyst Edward Snowden.
Kerry will leave Washington this weekend for Saudi Arabia, Poland, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria and Morocco, the State Department said on Thursday. With tensions between the U.S. and many of its allies rising, the department acknowledged that at least parts of the nine-day trip might be difficult.
"The secretary overall believes that rolling up his sleeves and having personal diplomacy is the way that we should continue to approach either issues we work together on, global challenges, or issues where there may be concerns as it relates to the intel-gathering reports," spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
At his first scheduled stop in Riyadh, Kerry will confront multiple spats with the Saudis over resolving the continuing conflict in Syria, nuclear negotiations with Iran and President Barack Obama's decision to withhold significant amounts of U.S. assistance to Egypt.
In his meeting with Saudi King Abdullah, Kerry "will reaffirm the strategic nature of the U.S.-Saudi relationship, given the importance of the work between our two countries on shared challenges, and the leadership Saudi Arabia provides for the region," Psaki said.
It may be a hard sell.
Senior Saudi officials have expressed frustration and anger with the Obama administration's Syria policy, despite Washington's and Riyadh's shared goal of bringing an end to President Bashar Assad's rule. Kerry himself has publicly acknowledged Saudi disappointment with the fact that Obama did not follow through on his threat to punish Assad for the use of chemical weapons with military strikes. Saudi Arabia has been at the forefront of providing military assistance to Assad's foes and wants the U.S. to take a more active role, a course the White House has resisted.
In addition, Saudi Arabia has watched with dismay as the administration has embarked on a tentative rapprochement with its archrival Iran and distanced itself from the government in Egypt in the aftermath of the military's ouster of the country's first democratically elected president.
Kerry told a town hall meeting with State Department employees earlier this week that he would like to travel to Egypt in the near future, but the itinerary released on Thursday did not include a stop there.
From Saudi Arabia, Kerry will travel to Warsaw for discussions with senior Polish officials on strategic and democracy issues, including missile defense and plans for NATO's withdrawal from Afghanistan next year.
Although it is the only European stop on Kerry's schedule, the visit to Poland will likely highlight the uproar over the revelations of alleged NSA spying on the continent and elsewhere. The controversy is particularly acute in neighboring Germany, where officials are incensed that Chancellor Angela Merkel was targeted for surveillance.
From Poland, the secretary will fly back to the Middle East, first visiting Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The visit will mark Kerry's fifth solo trip to Israel since April.
In Jerusalem and Bethlehem, Kerry will go over developments in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that have been going on with no tangible signs of progress since July with a nine-month target for reaching a deal.
Earlier this week, Israel released a second batch of Palestinian prisoners as a goodwill gesture. The next day, however, it announced plans for new construction in east Jerusalem, angering the Palestinians who claim the territory for their future capital.
Nuclear negotiations with Iran, which will be entering their second round in Geneva while Kerry is in Jerusalem, will also be a topic of discussion with Israeli officials, Psaki said. Israel views a nuclear-armed Iran as an existential threat and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been openly disdainful of the administration's outreach to Iran's new President Hassan Rouhani who took office in August promising reforms.
Netanyahu has disparaged Rouhani as a "wolf in sheep's clothing" and warned that he cannot be trusted in negotiations meant to get Iran to prove that is not trying to develop nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian atomic energy program.
"The secretary is open and willing to talk about what our goals and our bottom line is (in the negotiations with Iran), and he looks forward to doing that, as well as discussing direct negotiations," Psaki said.
After seeing Palestinian officials in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, Kerry will make the short flight to Amman, where he will discuss the peace process as well as the situation in Syria with top Jordanian officials. Jordan is under significant strain due to the conflict in Syria and is hosting hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees, who are proving a drain on its already shaky economy.
After Jordan, Kerry heads to the United Arab Emirates, another strong supporter of increased U.S. involvement in Syria, and will then head back to Washington via North Africa.
In Algeria and Morocco, he will compare notes on security and counterterrorism matters as well as democratic and economic reform in the wake of the revolutions that convulsed the region. The United States has "strategic dialogues" with both countries that are meant to enhance cooperation on a wide range of issues.
Sandia's Katherine Guzman receives national Hispanic award for technical contributions
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Mike Janes mejanes@sandia.gov 925-294-2447 DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
LIVERMORE, Calif. The Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Corp. (HENAAC) recently named Sandia National Laboratories' Katherine Guzman one of its 2013 Luminary honorees. She received her award Oct. 5 at the 25th Anniversary HENAAC Conference in New Orleans.
"This is an incredible honor," said Guzman. "I remember going to the HENAAC awards ceremony as an undergraduate and looking up at the award winners with awe, never imagining that one day I might be considered for such an award."
Luminary honorees represent professionals in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics who initiate, collaborate, and lead key programs and research in their organizations. These individuals have made significant contributions to the Hispanic technical community as leaders and role models.
"Katherine truly embodies our core values," said Todd West, one of Guzman's managers at Sandia. "She consistently executes and leads high-quality work in the face of sometimes challenging and ambiguous environments. She manages effective teams and fosters an attitude of mutual respect. Her outreach activities are equally exemplary. In short, Katherine is an ideal role model for others considering a career in science, technology, engineering or math."
New tools, service and science
At Sandia, Guzman has distinguished herself with her work in the area of risk management. She played a key role in the development of SUMMIT (Standard Unified Modeling, Mapping, and Integration Toolkit), a new technology to enable emergency management personnel to seamlessly access information from diverse models and data coming from different sources. The creation of these tools is now enabling the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to rigorously plan for and exercise against highly complex disaster scenarios.
Guzman now leads a Sandia effort to better understand risk for DHS, work that could shape the way the nation understands and attempts to mitigate homeland security risk.
Guzman said science was part of her upbringing. "My father is a scientist and he raised me and my sisters the way he was raised to ask a lot of questions," she said "He spent a lot of time explaining to us the how and why of everything."
Her future in mechanical engineering became apparent at a young age. "I was always more interested in building furniture for my dolls than playing with the dolls themselves," said Guzman. "Making things was what fascinated me."
Guzman earned a B.S. at The University of Texas at Austin and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. As both an undergraduate and graduate student, she found herself to be one of the few women and one of even fewer Hispanic women.
When it came time to consider where to begin her career, service was at the front of Guzman's mind. "My father served in the Peace Corps and my mother is a social worker, so I was raised with a very keen sense of making a contribution to the world," she said. "My dad is an agronomist and he felt that he, as part of a large community of scientists, was helping to solve world hunger through his work. That's a pretty noble cause to go to work for every day. So coming to Sandia was a natural choice because our work has true national impact."
Guzman is also driven by a personal passion to help minorities and women in science and engineering achieve their career dreams. As an undergraduate and graduate engineering student at two of the country's largest and most prestigious universities, she encountered very few female and minority role models and virtually no female minority role models. That is something she hopes to change with her work as a leader, mentor and keynote speaker.
Outside of work, Guzman stays busy with her husband and two young sons. "Balancing work with family and community is important to me," said Guzman. "I want to instill in my children the values I was raised with hard work, the value of education, the importance of community and respect for everyone."
###
Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin company, for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies and economic competitiveness.
Sandia news media contact: Mike Janes, mejanes@sandia.gov, (925) 294-2447
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Sandia's Katherine Guzman receives national Hispanic award for technical contributions
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Mike Janes mejanes@sandia.gov 925-294-2447 DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
LIVERMORE, Calif. The Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Corp. (HENAAC) recently named Sandia National Laboratories' Katherine Guzman one of its 2013 Luminary honorees. She received her award Oct. 5 at the 25th Anniversary HENAAC Conference in New Orleans.
"This is an incredible honor," said Guzman. "I remember going to the HENAAC awards ceremony as an undergraduate and looking up at the award winners with awe, never imagining that one day I might be considered for such an award."
Luminary honorees represent professionals in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics who initiate, collaborate, and lead key programs and research in their organizations. These individuals have made significant contributions to the Hispanic technical community as leaders and role models.
"Katherine truly embodies our core values," said Todd West, one of Guzman's managers at Sandia. "She consistently executes and leads high-quality work in the face of sometimes challenging and ambiguous environments. She manages effective teams and fosters an attitude of mutual respect. Her outreach activities are equally exemplary. In short, Katherine is an ideal role model for others considering a career in science, technology, engineering or math."
New tools, service and science
At Sandia, Guzman has distinguished herself with her work in the area of risk management. She played a key role in the development of SUMMIT (Standard Unified Modeling, Mapping, and Integration Toolkit), a new technology to enable emergency management personnel to seamlessly access information from diverse models and data coming from different sources. The creation of these tools is now enabling the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to rigorously plan for and exercise against highly complex disaster scenarios.
Guzman now leads a Sandia effort to better understand risk for DHS, work that could shape the way the nation understands and attempts to mitigate homeland security risk.
Guzman said science was part of her upbringing. "My father is a scientist and he raised me and my sisters the way he was raised to ask a lot of questions," she said "He spent a lot of time explaining to us the how and why of everything."
Her future in mechanical engineering became apparent at a young age. "I was always more interested in building furniture for my dolls than playing with the dolls themselves," said Guzman. "Making things was what fascinated me."
Guzman earned a B.S. at The University of Texas at Austin and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. As both an undergraduate and graduate student, she found herself to be one of the few women and one of even fewer Hispanic women.
When it came time to consider where to begin her career, service was at the front of Guzman's mind. "My father served in the Peace Corps and my mother is a social worker, so I was raised with a very keen sense of making a contribution to the world," she said. "My dad is an agronomist and he felt that he, as part of a large community of scientists, was helping to solve world hunger through his work. That's a pretty noble cause to go to work for every day. So coming to Sandia was a natural choice because our work has true national impact."
Guzman is also driven by a personal passion to help minorities and women in science and engineering achieve their career dreams. As an undergraduate and graduate engineering student at two of the country's largest and most prestigious universities, she encountered very few female and minority role models and virtually no female minority role models. That is something she hopes to change with her work as a leader, mentor and keynote speaker.
Outside of work, Guzman stays busy with her husband and two young sons. "Balancing work with family and community is important to me," said Guzman. "I want to instill in my children the values I was raised with hard work, the value of education, the importance of community and respect for everyone."
###
Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin company, for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies and economic competitiveness.
Sandia news media contact: Mike Janes, mejanes@sandia.gov, (925) 294-2447
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A federal appeals court on Thursday issued a ruling reinstating most of Texas' tough new abortion restrictions.
A panel of judges at the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued the ruling a day after District Judge Lee Yeakel said one provision serves no medical purpose.
The panel says the law requiring doctors to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital can take effect while a lawsuit moves forward. The restrictions could take effect Friday.
The panel left in place a portion of Yeakel's order that prevents the state from enforcing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration protocol for abortion-inducing drugs in cases where the woman is between 50 and 63 days into her pregnancy. Doctors testifying before the court had said such women would be harmed if the protocol were enforced.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott had made an emergency appeal to the conservative 5th Circuit, arguing that the law requiring doctors to have admitting privileges is a constitutional use of the Legislature's authority.
Lawyers for Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers had argued that the regulations did not protect women and would shut down a third of the abortion clinics in Texas.
The court's order is temporary until it can hold a complete hearing, likely in January. The restrictions are among the toughest in the nation and gained notoriety when Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis launched a nearly 13-hour filibuster against them in June. The law also bans abortions at 20 weeks of pregnancy and beginning in October 2014 requires doctors to perform all abortions in surgical facilities.
During the trial, officials for one chain of abortion clinics testified that they've tried to obtain admitting privileges for their doctors at 32 hospitals, but so far only 15 accepted applications and none have announced a decision. Many hospitals with religious affiliations will not allow abortion doctors to work there, while others fear protests if they provide privileges. Many have requirements that doctors live within a certain radius of the facility, or perform a minimum number of surgeries a year that must be performed in a hospital.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A federal appeals court on Thursday issued a ruling reinstating most of Texas' tough new abortion restrictions.
A panel of judges at the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued the ruling a day after District Judge Lee Yeakel said one provision serves no medical purpose.
The panel says the law requiring doctors to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital can take effect while a lawsuit moves forward. The restrictions could take effect Friday.
The panel left in place a portion of Yeakel's order that prevents the state from enforcing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration protocol for abortion-inducing drugs in cases where the woman is between 50 and 63 days into her pregnancy. Doctors testifying before the court had said such women would be harmed if the protocol were enforced.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott had made an emergency appeal to the conservative 5th Circuit, arguing that the law requiring doctors to have admitting privileges is a constitutional use of the Legislature's authority.
Lawyers for Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers had argued that the regulations did not protect women and would shut down a third of the abortion clinics in Texas.
The court's order is temporary until it can hold a complete hearing, likely in January. The restrictions are among the toughest in the nation and gained notoriety when Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis launched a nearly 13-hour filibuster against them in June. The law also bans abortions at 20 weeks of pregnancy and beginning in October 2014 requires doctors to perform all abortions in surgical facilities.
During the trial, officials for one chain of abortion clinics testified that they've tried to obtain admitting privileges for their doctors at 32 hospitals, but so far only 15 accepted applications and none have announced a decision. Many hospitals with religious affiliations will not allow abortion doctors to work there, while others fear protests if they provide privileges. Many have requirements that doctors live within a certain radius of the facility, or perform a minimum number of surgeries a year that must be performed in a hospital.
Colorado Avalanche goalie Semyon Varlamov appears in this booking photo released by the Denver Police Department. Varlamov surrendered to Denver police on an arrest warrant on charges of kidnapping and third-degree assault in what authorities are calling a domestic violence incident. Police released few details about the case Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, during a brief news conference. (AP Photo/Denver Police Department)
Colorado Avalanche goalie Semyon Varlamov appears in this booking photo released by the Denver Police Department. Varlamov surrendered to Denver police on an arrest warrant on charges of kidnapping and third-degree assault in what authorities are calling a domestic violence incident. Police released few details about the case Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, during a brief news conference. (AP Photo/Denver Police Department)
DENVER (AP) — Colorado Avalanche goalie Semyon Varlamov will be allowed out of jail and be able to travel with the team while prosecutors consider charging him in a domestic violence case.
Varlamov is accused of assaulting his girlfriend, kicking her in the chest and dragging her by the hair.
He appeared in court Thursday dressed in a yellow jail jumpsuit. A judge set his bond at $5,000, and his attorney said he would be able to post that immediately.
Denver County Judge Claudia Jordan ordered Varlamov to stay away from his girlfriend and not contact her.
Varlamov also was ordered to relinquish any firearms in his possession. He said through his lawyer he didn't have any guns.
The 25-year-old turned himself in to police Wednesday evening, after practicing with the team that day. He was arrested on suspicion of second-degree kidnapping and third-degree assault.
His arrest warrant details the alleged assault, which took place Monday. In addition to kicking the woman, police say Varlamov told her in Russian that if this were Russia, he would have beat her more.
Varlamov's attorney, Jack Rotole, declined to comment on the case going into Varlamov's court appearance.
Varlamov's agent, Paul Theofanous, said Varlamov "is completely innocent of all of these charges."
The Avalanche said in a statement they were aware of the allegations but wouldn't comment further until the conclusion of the investigation.
Acquired from Washington in a 2011 trade, Varlamov is 7-1 this season with a 1.76 goals-against average. On Sunday night, he made 24 saves in a 3-2 home victory over Winnipeg.
The Avalanche play at Dallas on Friday night and Varlamov was scheduled to start. His backup, Jean-Sebastien Giguere, has been just as good in net, recording two shutouts.
___
Associated Press writer Colleen Slevin contributed to this report.
These HIV viruses even look a little like bull's-eyes.
A. Harrison and P. Feorino/CDC
These HIV viruses even look a little like bull's-eyes.
A. Harrison and P. Feorino/CDC
Scientists have a new idea for beating HIV: Target the virus with guided missiles called monoclonal antibodies.
At least in monkeys infected with an experimental virus similar to the human AIDS virus, the approach produced what researchers call "profound therapeutic efficacy."
The results appear Thursday in two papers published by Nature — one from a Boston group, and a confirmatory report from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious diseases.
The virus plummeted to undetectable levels in animals that got potent antibodies of a type recently discovered in some humans with HIV. And the virus remained undetectable for weeks after a single antibody injection.
“ This is a really new wrinkle in a field that needs new wrinkles
- Dr. Francis Collins
Most impressive, several monkeys who started out with low levels of HIV in their blood maintained extremely low levels of the virus in their systems months after a single antibody injection.
The researchers think they may have turned these animals into so-called elite controllers – like the 1 percent of HIV patients who are able to suppress the virus even without antiviral drugs.
The scientists say their results justify experiments in humans with HIV. And the potential implications seem to be large, in at least two ways:
Periodic injections of monoclonal antibodies might be a new kind of treatment for HIV-infected humans, either alone or in combination with conventional antiviral drugs.
Monoclonal antibodies might be incorporated into strategies, now being eagerly pursued by a number of scientists, to cure HIV infection – that is, to clear the virus from patients' cells, allowing them to stop taking antiviral drugs.
"The findings of these two papers could revolutionize efforts to cure HIV," two cure-seekers write in a Naturecommentary. Why? Louis Picker of Oregon Health and Science University and Steven Deeks of the University of California, San Francisco speculate that combining monoclonal antibodies with conventional antiviral drugs might turbocharge the suppression of HIV, stimulate the destruction of reservoirs of HIV-infected cells, and suppress the generalized immune activation that accompanies chronic HIV infection.
"At the very least, these results will catalyse collaborations between the massive teams of experts who have for decades worked on HIV prevention and treatment in separate venues," Picker and Deeks predict.
The findings stem from discoveries over the past year or so that some humans with HIV occasionally make antibodies to the virus that are highly potent. That insight came after years of disappointing efforts to find what researchers call broadly neutralizing antibodies against HIV — or to stimulate their production with experimental vaccines.
Dan Barouch of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and his colleagues generated several types of the newly discovered antibodies in mice. They then injected the antibodies into 18 rhesus monkeys who had been infected ninemonths earlier with a specially concocted virus with features of both HIV (the human AIDS virus) and SIV (the simian, or monkey, version). The hybrid virus, which doesn't appear in nature, is called SHIV.
The antibody injections resulted in rapid clearance of free-floating SHIV from the animals' blood that was sustained for weeks or months, until the antibodies gradually disappeared.
There was also evidence that the antibodies stimulated the monkeys' own immune systems to target and kill the cells infected by SHIV. That needs confirmation, but if it happens that would be important, because long-term control of infection requires the elimination of these hiding places – the cells that harbor viral genes that can give rise to new HIV.
The durability of the antibody treatment varied according to how much SHIV the monkeys had in their system to start with.
The Boston researchers were so surprised by their findings that they didn't publish them until the NIH group replicated them in a smaller study.
Other scientists say the implications of this early immunotherapy study are potentially far-reaching. NIH Director Francis Collins toldThe Wall Street Journal that he could imagine shifting HIV treatment from daily antiviral pills to injections of monoclonal antibodies every three months. "This is a really new wrinkle in a field that needs new wrinkles," Collins says.
Forced to pull out of Bellator's inaugural Pay-Per-View event after fracturing his neck last week, Tito Ortiz says he plans on returning to action sooner than some believed possible.
"Ppl I will have 100% recovery & will be back n the gym in 6 weeks," Ortiz posted to Twitter. "I'm a fighter & I love competition. I was doing great n training but accident do happen. Just time to reshuffle the deck & deal another hand. #positiveminded"
Ortiz, of course, was originally slated to face fellow former UFC light heavyweight champion Quinton Jackson in the main event at Bellator 106 on Nov. 2, the promotion's first foray in PPV. With Tito removed, Jackson was shifted to a later card where he'll face former UFC heavyweight Joey Beltran. Bellator 106, no longer a PPV, will now be headlined by the lightweight title rematch between champion Michael Chandler and Eddie Alvarez.
PPV numbers. Dave Meltzer takes a look at why UFC 165 and UFC 166may not have reached expectations. "Today it's very clear that big personalities who can fight reasonably well trump even the combination of skill, size and fighting ability at the highest level, and even heaviest level, when it comes to what gets people to spend their money."
20 in 20. Chuck Mindenhall's series reaches 2011, where the year's best action all took place on one night in two different shows.
So, Twitter decided not to cooperate last night and for some reason refused to let me embed tweets. I'll try to get it sorted ASAP. Sorry for the screen grabs.
Halloween is my least favorite holiday, and I don't know what would come in second. This is an odd way to start an article about being scared, true. But I detest it. I think it brings out the worst in people, especially in regards to the whole trick-or-treat culture. You have kids running full speed in the dark and shoving other kids out of the way to get first dibs on the prime candy spots; you have lazy, absentee parents "taking" their kids trick-or-treating (when all they're doing is inching up the street in their cars, making it impossible to drive); worst of all, you have people pretending to be someone else and pretending to scare other people, which is an affront to all those special folks doing those things for real the other 364 days of the year. It's kind of like New Years Eve, where all those non-drinkers have a few whiskey sours and end up passed out in their neighbors flower bed singing "Bennie and the Jets" and vomiting at the same time. Simply put, it's amateur hour.
That being said, I'm trying to get into the spirit, because I have children in my life. You don't want to be an ogre, because that energy rubs off on kids. Since I can't figure out how to transition from opining on Halloween to opining on things about MMA that would scare the shit out of me if I was forced to experience them ... well, here are some things about MMA that would scare the shit out of me if I was forced to experience them.
Getting into a leglock battle with a Japanese guy.
One of the most important adages in life, "never play footsies with a Japanese guy" is right up there with "never play cards with anyone who has the same first name as a city". It's just a bad idea. You're scrambling, you think you have something, and next thing you know, you're tapping rapidly. Actually, I just thought of a better one ...
Google's stable Chrome release already has a reset tool in case malware hijacks the browser, but we're sure many would rather avoid that rogue code in the first place. Thankfully, a new build of Chrome Canary automatically blocks hostile apps. Try to download malware that Google recognizes and ...
He’s been working his way towards reconciliation with his wife Khloe Kardashian and Lamar Odom did in fact spend the evening with her last night (October 28).
Per a TMZ source, the pro basketball stud attended the Kanye West Yeezus Tour concert in Los Angeles and spent some time with the E! reality television star.
However, Khloe has not taken Lamar back into her good graces just yet, despite his repeated attempts to patch things up.
Odom has been clean and sober for a few weeks and the Kardashians are “supporting his recovery and wanted him to have a good time” at the show.
Specifically, the Taiwanese FTC said Samsung paid two "marketing firms" more than $100,000 to hire people to "highlight the shortcomings of competing products," engage in the "disinfection of negative news about Samsung products," positively review Samsung products and, (in a bizarre turn of phrase), do "palindromic Samsung product marketing," whatever that means.
Wait, what's 'astroturfing'?
Samsung was fined for paying a "large number of hired writers and designated employees" to post comments in online forums praising Samsung and criticizing competitors.
Astroturf is a brand of fake grass; "astroturfing" is a reference to a fake "grass-roots" movement.
The practice of astroturfing has a long and sordid history. The term was coined by U.S. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen of Texas in 1985, referring to a letter-writing campaign orchestrated by the insurance industry. In fact, astroturfing has been a major tool of political dirty tricks since the Roman empire.
The rise of the Internet, online messages boards and social media—and with it, the rising influence of "the crowd"—has brought the practice to business, including the mobile computing industry, as well as other types of businesses.
Sites like Fiverr host astroturfing transactions openly. A Fiverr user named " Jay from India," for example, offers to promote your iOS, Android or BlackBerry app on 25 online forums for $10.
Astroturfing scale ranges from the local business where the owner asks family and friends to write positive online reviews to the biggest sustained astroturfing campaign in history: China's 50-cent army.
The Chinese government reportedly pays as many 300,000 people to post pro-Chinese government comments on forums, message boards and social media sites within China and all over the world. It has reportedly being going on for years as part of a sustained policy.
(This effort of disinformation bolsters that government's massive monitoring system for social media worldwide, which reportedly employs 2 million people.)
While China allegedly relies upon sheer manpower to overwhelm global public opinion about the Chinese government, other organizations use automation.
A class of software called " persona management software" magnifies the effectiveness of each paid fake opinion writer by auto-generating a credible but phony online persona (also called a "sockpuppet"), including a fake name, email address, web site, social media profiles and other data. The software creates fake online activity to give the non-existent users a "history" or online "footprint."
"Persona management software" specific to social networks is called a " social bot."
Some industries rely almost entirely upon web-based reviews, and so astroturfing is rife. Hotels, restaurants, and books are heavily reliant on customer-generated reviews to attract new business.
Commenters were recruited on sites like Craigslist, Freelancer and oDesk and paid between $1 and $10 per "review."
A new book by NPR's David Folkenflik, called Murdoch's World, claims that Fox News engaged in " institutionalized astroturfing of the Internet" by using Fox employees using untraceable wireless connections to post pro-Fox posts online. One even used a dial-up AOL account. Another used 100 fake personas, according to the book.
What's wrong with astroturfing?
A Nielsen study from last year determined that 70 percent of people surveyed trust online user reviews and that 83 percent are influenced in their buying decisions by these reviews.
A Gartner report from about a year ago predicts that by 2014, between 10 percent and 15 percent of all social media "reviews" will be fake astroturfed opinions paid for by various companies.
This is problematic because buyers can be misled, and in unpredictable ways.
When I posted a short item on Google+ about the Samsung fine this week, an alarmingly large percentage of commenters expressed a belief that astroturfing is a common problem in the industry and that all major companies do it.
This belief is a problem for two reasons. First, just as astroturfing itself leads consumers astray by making them believe fake opinions, the belief that astroturfing is common leads consumers astray by making them doubt real opinions.
Second, a widespread belief that "everybody astroturfs" is itself an incentive for companies to engage in astroturfing. Why not benefit from the practice if consumers already believe you do it?
What to do about astroturfing
Some day soon, there may be a widely deployed software solution to the problem of paid astroturfing of online comments.
Cornell University researchers have created an algorithm that can detect astroturfed comments. They claim they can identify fake opinion posts 90 percent of the time. It would be helpful for a company like Google to deploy something like this to get a "second opinion" about whether comments posted online are real or fake.
The bottom line is that Samsung is not the only company engaged in astroturfing—not by a long shot. It's a widespread practice, and one that's difficult to detect.
Yes, we should all consult user options, but approach them with healthy skepticism. But more importantly, we should heavily favor reviews by professional reviewers in reputable publications before buying products.
Such journalist reviewers are not only skillful and experienced at writing product reviews, they're actually paid to be objective.
FILE - This Aug. 4, 2012 file photo shows new football helmets that were given to a group of youth football players from the Akron Parents Pee Wee Football League, in Akron, Ohio. It's not just football. A new report says too little is known about concussion risks for young athletes, and it's not clear whether better headgear is an answer. The panel stresses wearing proper safety equipment. But it finds little evidence that current helmet designs, face masks and other gear really prevent concussions, as ads often claim. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
FILE - This Aug. 4, 2012 file photo shows new football helmets that were given to a group of youth football players from the Akron Parents Pee Wee Football League, in Akron, Ohio. It's not just football. A new report says too little is known about concussion risks for young athletes, and it's not clear whether better headgear is an answer. The panel stresses wearing proper safety equipment. But it finds little evidence that current helmet designs, face masks and other gear really prevent concussions, as ads often claim. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — It's not just a risk in football.
No one knows how often the youngest athletes suffer concussions, and it's not clear whether better headgear is going to be the answer.
A new report reveals big gaps in what is known about the risk of concussion in youth sports, especially for athletes who suit up before high school.
It's time to create a national system to track sports-related concussions and start answering those questions, the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council concluded Wednesday.
Despite a decade of increasing awareness of the seriousness of concussions, the panel found that young athletes still face a "culture of resistance" to reporting the injury and staying on the sidelines until healed.
"Concussion is an injury that needs to be taken seriously. If an athlete has a torn ACL on the field, you don't expect him to tape it up and play," said IOM committee chairman Dr. Robert Graham, who directs the Aligning Forces for Quality national program office at George Washington University.
"We're moving in the right direction," Graham added.
But the panel found evidence, including testimony from a player accused by teammates of wimping out, that athletic programs' attention to concussions varies.
Reports of sports concussions are on the rise, amid increasing scrutiny in recent years and headlines about former professional players who suffered long-term impairment after repeated blows.
New guidelines make clear that no matter the athlete's age, anyone suspected of having a concussion needs to be taken out of play immediately and not allowed back until cleared by a medical professional.
Although millions of U.S. children and teenagers play either school or community sports, it's not clear exactly how many suffer concussions, in part because many go undiagnosed.
But Wednesday's report said among people 19 and younger, 250,000 reported treatment for concussions and other sports- or recreation-related brain injuries in 2009, up from 150,000 in 2001.
Rates vary by sport.
For male athletes in high school and college, concussion rates are highest for football, ice hockey, lacrosse and wrestling. For females, soccer, lacrosse and basketball head the list. Women's ice hockey has one of the highest reported concussion rates at the college level.
College and high school sports injuries are tracked fairly well, but there's no similar data to know how often younger children get concussions, whether on school teams or community leagues, the IOM panel said.
Could safety gear prevent kids' concussions?
Some equipment ads make that claim. But there's little scientific evidence that current sports helmet designs or other gear, such as face masks or headbands for soccer, really reduce the risk, the panel cautioned.
Still, it stressed that youngsters should wear helmets and other sport-appropriate safety gear, because they guard against other injuries, including skull fractures and face injuries.
"Parents deserve to know how safe their children's safety equipment really is," said Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., who is pushing legislation to curb false advertising and encourage improvements to sports equipment standards. "While we can't reduce every risk, we should do everything we can to stop misleading advertising that gives parents a false sense of security."
Lenovo is claiming that its new Yoga tablets will offer 18 hours of battery life when browsing the web, which would be the longest when compared to other tablets.
The company's new Yoga tablets, which will come in 8-inch and 10.1-inch versions, will provide 12 to 14 hours when watching high-definition video, said Stephen Miller, Lenovo ambassador. The tablets were announced at a launch event in New York.
The battery life can be even longer if the tablets are set to low screen brightness, Miller said.
If Lenovo's claims of battery life hold up, the Yoga tablets will beat competition handily. Tablets today are at best able to squeeze up to 11 hours of battery life. The Yoga tablets have high-capacity cylindrical batteries similar to ones used in laptops, which helps prolong battery life.
The 8-inch tablet, which is priced at $249, weighs 400 grams. The 10.1-inch tablet is at $299 and weighs 603 grams. The tablets will run Android 4.2 and be available in the U.S. on Wednesday. The company did not comment on worldwide availability.
The battery is housed in the tablet's circular base, which makes it easier to grip the device. A kick-stand allows the tablet to sit firmly on the table.
With a circular base, the Yoga tablets bears a resemblance to Notion Ink's now-defunct Adam tablet, which was one of the first Android tablets to ship when it became available in late 2010.
The Yoga tablets run on MediaTek quad-core processors with a clock speed of 1.2GHz. Both of the tablets display images at a resolution of 1,280 x 800 pixels.
Other features include a 1.6-megapixel front camera, a 5-megapixel back camera, up to 32GB of internal storage, and micro-SD card slot for expandable storage.
Lenovo has introduced a range of tablets, PCs, and hybrids in the last few years. The new products are important as buyers move away from PCs to mobile products.
"We shipped more smartphones and tablets than PCs," during the third quarter, Miller said.
Agam Shah covers PCs, tablets, servers, chips and semiconductors for IDG News Service. Follow Agam on Twitter at @agamsh. Agam's e-mail address is agam_shah@idg.com.
Racing sperm to boost results of in vitro fertilization
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
30-Oct-2013
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Contact: Michael Cohen mcohen@wpi.edu 508-868-4778 Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital receive National Science Foundation grant to develop new device that identifies healthy sperm cells, potentially helping couples conceive
Worcester, Mass. The World Health Organization estimates more than 70 million couples worldwide are unable to conceive each year, with close to a third of those cases attributable solely to issues with male fertilityincluding low sperm count and low sperm motility (a limited ability to swim). Now, with recently published data showing encouraging results, researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) have received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to refine a new device that races sperm through a microscopic obstacle course to select those most likely to successfully fertilize an egg.
In vitro fertilization (IVF) is the most widely used assisted reproductive technology and can help overcome problems with male fertility. Its potential for success is significantly enhanced when sperm can be sorted so only the healthiest calls and the best swimmers are used. Unfortunately, current clinical techniques for sorting sperm are inefficient or are likely to damage sperm DNA.
To solve this sorting problem, a new approach has been developed that uses advanced mathematical models and high-powered computer simulations to analyze and predict how sperm swim under varying conditions. The approach is the product of a novel research collaboration between Erkan Tzel, PhD, assistant professor of physics at WPI, and Utkan Demirci, PhD, assistant professor of medicine and health sciences and technology at Divisions of Biomedical Engineering and Infectious Diseases, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School.
Demirci's lab is developing microfluidics (small devices sometimes referred to as "lab on a chip") to test new ways to sort sperm. Tzel and his team use the physics of fluid dynamics and customized algorithms to model how sperm cells move through narrow channels. Funded by a new three-year, $293,000 grant from the NSF, Tzel will use simulations to optimize the design of the sperm-sorting chip. As the simulations and computer modeling progress, Demirci's lab will build and test new microfluidic chips based on Tzel's refinements.
"We are grateful to the National Science Foundation for this grant," Tzel said. "With our collaborators, we hope to be able to build on our research to develop clever microfluidic designs that will be even more effective in sorting sperm and improving the success of assisted reproductive technologies."
Demerici added, "the NSF has supported a true interdisciplinary effort at the convergence of medicine and fluid dynamics addressing a significant reproductive medicine challenge by a new type of thinking for sorting cells."
There are now two standard techniques used to separate out the most motile sperm. One is called the swim-up technique, in which sperm swim from a droplet of liquid into a denser layer of media; the cells reaching the denser layer most quickly are recovered and used for IVF. In the other technique, known as density gradient separation, a sperm sample is placed in a tube filled with layers of liquid of different densities. When the tube is spun in a centrifuge, the strongest swimming sperm are able to cross into the denser liquids.
Neither of these methods is particularly effective at dealing with low sperm counts or low sperm motility; in addition, the density gradient technique is known to cause damage to sperm DNA. Also, both techniques use chemical agents that may damage cells. So Tzel and Demirci have taken a different approach.
The microfluidic device they are collaborating on uses no chemicals or centrifugation. It relies only on the cells' own ability to move through channels. Within the female reproductive tract, sperm swim through a variable fluidic environment with watery micro-channels that help guide them to the egg. In the new device, sperm are placed at one end of a narrow channel and allowed to swim toward the other end. After a set period of time (called the incubation period), the sperm that have made it to the finish line are removed from the channel's end. The idea is to mimic what happens naturally.
In May, Tzel and Demirci reported results of initial studies in the paper "Exhaustion of Racing Sperm in Nature Mimicking Microfluidic Channels During Sorting" published in the journal Small. This work combined mathematical modeling and the actual results of human and mouse sperm cells tested in a prototype of the microfluidic chip. The team found that the microfluidic channels yielded sperm with significantly higher motility and produced samples with a greater concentration of highly motile sperm than either the swim-up or density gradient techniques. This study showed the potential for developing a new technique for sorting sperm that could effectively, reliably, and safely separate out the most active swimmers. The coarse-grained model Tzel's group built accurately recapitulated experimental results, and made predictions on the exhaustion time.
"To obtain quantitative agreement with experiments, our simulations predicted an exhaustion time of about 30 minutes for mouse sperm, whereas for human sperm the exhaustion time is more than an hour," Tzel said. "To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to quantitatively estimate exhaustion time of sperm using modeling coupled to microfluidics experiments."
Next, Tzel's group will refine the model of sperm locomotion to produce a more realistic simulation, and model differing designs of the microfluidic channels to improve the yield of healthy and motile sperm. "We know, for example, that through hydrodynamic interactions, sperm synchronize their movements to swim more efficiently," Tzel said. "And we are starting to understand more about how the presence of walls can impact the speed at which multiple sperm move. But we are in need of novel, efficient approaches to model complex interactions between groups of swimming sperm, and how they interact with their surroundings. That is our focus through the new grant."
###
About Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Founded in 1865 in Worcester, Mass., WPI was one of the nation's first engineering and technology universities. Its 14 academic departments offer more than 50 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science, engineering, technology, business, the social sciences, and the humanities and arts, leading to bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees. WPI's talented faculty work with students on interdisciplinary research that seeks solutions to important and socially relevant problems in fields as diverse as the life sciences and bioengineering, energy, information security, materials processing, and robotics. Students also have the opportunity to make a difference to communities and organizations around the world through the university's innovative Global Perspective Program. There are more than 35 WPI project centers throughout North America and Central America, Africa, Australia, Asia, and Europe.
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Racing sperm to boost results of in vitro fertilization
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
30-Oct-2013
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Contact: Michael Cohen mcohen@wpi.edu 508-868-4778 Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital receive National Science Foundation grant to develop new device that identifies healthy sperm cells, potentially helping couples conceive
Worcester, Mass. The World Health Organization estimates more than 70 million couples worldwide are unable to conceive each year, with close to a third of those cases attributable solely to issues with male fertilityincluding low sperm count and low sperm motility (a limited ability to swim). Now, with recently published data showing encouraging results, researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) have received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to refine a new device that races sperm through a microscopic obstacle course to select those most likely to successfully fertilize an egg.
In vitro fertilization (IVF) is the most widely used assisted reproductive technology and can help overcome problems with male fertility. Its potential for success is significantly enhanced when sperm can be sorted so only the healthiest calls and the best swimmers are used. Unfortunately, current clinical techniques for sorting sperm are inefficient or are likely to damage sperm DNA.
To solve this sorting problem, a new approach has been developed that uses advanced mathematical models and high-powered computer simulations to analyze and predict how sperm swim under varying conditions. The approach is the product of a novel research collaboration between Erkan Tzel, PhD, assistant professor of physics at WPI, and Utkan Demirci, PhD, assistant professor of medicine and health sciences and technology at Divisions of Biomedical Engineering and Infectious Diseases, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School.
Demirci's lab is developing microfluidics (small devices sometimes referred to as "lab on a chip") to test new ways to sort sperm. Tzel and his team use the physics of fluid dynamics and customized algorithms to model how sperm cells move through narrow channels. Funded by a new three-year, $293,000 grant from the NSF, Tzel will use simulations to optimize the design of the sperm-sorting chip. As the simulations and computer modeling progress, Demirci's lab will build and test new microfluidic chips based on Tzel's refinements.
"We are grateful to the National Science Foundation for this grant," Tzel said. "With our collaborators, we hope to be able to build on our research to develop clever microfluidic designs that will be even more effective in sorting sperm and improving the success of assisted reproductive technologies."
Demerici added, "the NSF has supported a true interdisciplinary effort at the convergence of medicine and fluid dynamics addressing a significant reproductive medicine challenge by a new type of thinking for sorting cells."
There are now two standard techniques used to separate out the most motile sperm. One is called the swim-up technique, in which sperm swim from a droplet of liquid into a denser layer of media; the cells reaching the denser layer most quickly are recovered and used for IVF. In the other technique, known as density gradient separation, a sperm sample is placed in a tube filled with layers of liquid of different densities. When the tube is spun in a centrifuge, the strongest swimming sperm are able to cross into the denser liquids.
Neither of these methods is particularly effective at dealing with low sperm counts or low sperm motility; in addition, the density gradient technique is known to cause damage to sperm DNA. Also, both techniques use chemical agents that may damage cells. So Tzel and Demirci have taken a different approach.
The microfluidic device they are collaborating on uses no chemicals or centrifugation. It relies only on the cells' own ability to move through channels. Within the female reproductive tract, sperm swim through a variable fluidic environment with watery micro-channels that help guide them to the egg. In the new device, sperm are placed at one end of a narrow channel and allowed to swim toward the other end. After a set period of time (called the incubation period), the sperm that have made it to the finish line are removed from the channel's end. The idea is to mimic what happens naturally.
In May, Tzel and Demirci reported results of initial studies in the paper "Exhaustion of Racing Sperm in Nature Mimicking Microfluidic Channels During Sorting" published in the journal Small. This work combined mathematical modeling and the actual results of human and mouse sperm cells tested in a prototype of the microfluidic chip. The team found that the microfluidic channels yielded sperm with significantly higher motility and produced samples with a greater concentration of highly motile sperm than either the swim-up or density gradient techniques. This study showed the potential for developing a new technique for sorting sperm that could effectively, reliably, and safely separate out the most active swimmers. The coarse-grained model Tzel's group built accurately recapitulated experimental results, and made predictions on the exhaustion time.
"To obtain quantitative agreement with experiments, our simulations predicted an exhaustion time of about 30 minutes for mouse sperm, whereas for human sperm the exhaustion time is more than an hour," Tzel said. "To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to quantitatively estimate exhaustion time of sperm using modeling coupled to microfluidics experiments."
Next, Tzel's group will refine the model of sperm locomotion to produce a more realistic simulation, and model differing designs of the microfluidic channels to improve the yield of healthy and motile sperm. "We know, for example, that through hydrodynamic interactions, sperm synchronize their movements to swim more efficiently," Tzel said. "And we are starting to understand more about how the presence of walls can impact the speed at which multiple sperm move. But we are in need of novel, efficient approaches to model complex interactions between groups of swimming sperm, and how they interact with their surroundings. That is our focus through the new grant."
###
About Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Founded in 1865 in Worcester, Mass., WPI was one of the nation's first engineering and technology universities. Its 14 academic departments offer more than 50 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science, engineering, technology, business, the social sciences, and the humanities and arts, leading to bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees. WPI's talented faculty work with students on interdisciplinary research that seeks solutions to important and socially relevant problems in fields as diverse as the life sciences and bioengineering, energy, information security, materials processing, and robotics. Students also have the opportunity to make a difference to communities and organizations around the world through the university's innovative Global Perspective Program. There are more than 35 WPI project centers throughout North America and Central America, Africa, Australia, Asia, and Europe.
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Google's stable Chrome release already has a reset tool in case malware hijacks the browser, but we're sure many would rather avoid that rogue code in the first place. Thankfully, a new build of Chrome Canary automatically blocks hostile apps. Try to download malware that Google recognizes and ...
